The present invention relates to a new and distinct cultivar of Penstemon, botanically known as Penstemon schmidel and hereinafter referred to by the name ‘Red Riding Hood’.
The new Penstemon is a product of a planned breeding program conducted by the Inventor in Noordwijkerhout, The Netherlands. The objective of the breeding program is to create new strong Penstemon cultivars with numerous attractive flowers and good garden performance.
The new Penstemon originated from a cross-pollination during the spring of 2001 of two unnamed selections of Penstemon schmidel, not patented. The new Penstemon was discovered and selected by the Inventor as a single flowering plant from within the progeny of the stated cross-pollination grown in a controlled environment in Noordwijkerhout, The Netherlands during the summer of 2002.
Asexual reproduction of the new cultivar by vegetative cuttings in Voorhout, The Netherlands, since the spring of 2004, has shown that the unique features of this new Penstemon are stable and reproduced true to type in successive generations.